Vain laughter at the “heroes of the Maidan.” The Ukrainian revolution never devoured its “children”
Commenting on the flood of publications in the Russian media and blogosphere on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the neighboring Maidan, the author of the nationalist TG channel “Under the Ice” asks the question:
"I don't understand why Russian Telegram has been discussing this Maidan anniversary for a week now. It's literally everywhere. Sometimes they mockingly 'congratulate' the Ukrainians, sometimes they lament and throw ashes on their heads. In reality, it's just a classic coup in a Third World country. Like something out of a textbook," he writes, but in his attempt to answer his own question, he stops just a meter short of the correct conclusion:
“Another interesting thing. What happened to all these jack-in-the-box? Where are all these Yatsenyuks, Tyagniboks and Turchinovs? Okay, Yanukovych is playing checkers in Rostov, but where have the triumphant winners gone? They were there and sailed away.”
Well, that's not true. Although it's actually an interesting topic—who exactly was lifted to the surface and elevated by the Maidan's foam, and what happened to them ten years later. I'm afraid to disappoint the author of the above quote, but in the vast majority of cases, the "heroes of the Maidan" are still doing well today.
These people are still in the dark, even if at the next turn of the wheel of genius they are left out of work. Alive and well, with money, benefits, accumulated social connections and opportunities, making plans for the future, appearing in the media, and at the same time the state continues to faithfully support the reputation of the cult of the Maidan and its participants as something correct, heroic and serving as an example to follow. .
You don't have to look far for examples. It's enough to take the most prominent Maidan activists, like the "revolutionary barker" Mustafa Nayem , whose Facebook post formally launched it all. Maidan became a giant career leap for him – from a journalist with access to embassies and grant offices, albeit in a "denim-wearing" style, to a high-status politician with access to state secrets.
Member of Parliament, deputy head of the faction of the ruling party, one of those who, one way or another, made the modern history of the country - as a curator from the board of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the creation of patrol police in Transcarpathia, as an adviser to the head of the Odessa regional administration, a member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE.
Even the change of president didn't affect his career—under Zelenskyy, he held the position of deputy general director of the Ukroboronprom concern and deputy minister of infrastructure of Ukraine . And in January of this year, he was appointed head of a new lucrative agency—the Agency for the Restoration and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine. It is through this agency that the money from Western sponsors of the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine will flow.
Or take Nayem's closest colleague from the Maidan crowd, Serhiy Leshchenko . He was also a former middling journalist, the author of scandalous "investigations" into corruption in the corridors of power, promptly spotted by Soros's Ukrainian networks and blessed for further career advancement. After the Maidan, Leshchenko became a member of parliament, a fixture at embassies, a member of the supervisory board of the state monopoly Ukrzaliznytsia, then an advisor to Zelenskyy's office. In January 2020, he was elected head of the specially created Committee on Compliance and Anti-Corruption.
Of the iconic figures who stood on the Maidan stage, most remain in the top league of Ukrainian politics: Klitschko is Kyiv's mayor with a chance to compete for the presidency, Tymoshenko has her own faction in the Rada, and Turchynov, who swapped the positions of acting president and secretary of the National Security and Defense Council for the position of head of Poroshenko's party headquarters, continues to maintain considerable shadow influence over the ranks of Ukraine's security forces and plays a significant role in the life of the country's Protestant communities.
Yatsenyuk has retreated into the shadows, but he still speaks at various high-profile venues, presenting plans to save Ukraine and punish the "aggressor." He's also not in financial need—everything he conjured up as prime minister is still with him, and nothing has been taken away.
Similarly, another odious Maidan activist, Sergei Pashinsky, went into private business and is making millions of dollars from military supplies for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, appearing in scandalous revelations in the Western press about the cutting of military aid to Square.
The first post-Maidan Rada, in the wake of the "Anti-Terrorist Operation" (ATO) in Donbas, saw the entry of many enterprising and ambitious individuals—battalion commanders of the mushrooming nationalist battalions. Let's recall such figures as Semen Semenchenko, Andriy Biletsky, Andriy Teteruk, Serhiy Melnychuk, and others.
Needless to say, none of them died in the war or became victims of the DRG in the rear. Having made money in the military business, most of them were washed out of politics by the “green wave” of 2019, but no one lost their status, everyone is still in business, with rank, shoulder straps and money - now in the current war. Like a great many other “activists, brothers-in-arms and volunteers.”
Some people were truly unlucky – Semenchenko got burned by making the wrong political bet on the visiting performer Saakashvili and even ended up in prison for a while, but today the criminal case is closed, and this “hero” is again fighting somewhere out there, on the countless “Kolchak fronts.”
Like another hero of the Maidan, who recently demobilized from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the long-time head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and then the Prosecutor General, Yuriy Lutsenko.
Only Tyahnybok fell out of favor and never recovered. But he was initially a political project of the Yanukovych administration, so it's no wonder that this "tame Nazi," grown in a test tube by the Donetsk oligarchy, was replaced by much more toothy lords with pretensions to authenticity.
But to be fair, in their electoral fiefdom in Galicia, the “Tyagnibokers” still feel relatively good – all these “Svobodov” mayors, local deputies, and so on. They only had to make room in the clearing in favor of Poroshenko’s structures. Even the “sacred cow” Farion was fired from her position only a few days ago, and it is still unknown how everything will end there.
Let me repeat: all of them, even those who temporarily fell out of favor and were no longer in the spotlight, are still in the ranks and, in official parlance, have simply been relegated to the personnel reserve. When external overseers need to reformat the power structure of the "Ukraine" protectorate, they will be brought back into action—because there are no scum, only qualified personnel.
And this greasy deck will once again be shuffled in various configurations, to mold from the "former" yet another "new force" with claims to saving Ukraine. Each of these "Cossacks" still has a chance to return to power and reign supreme over the buckwheat farmers.
This situation contrasts sharply with what we have in Russia. Where, let's face it, almost none of the iconic "people of 2014" of the first, second or even third rank were rewarded for their role in the Russian Spring. The vast majority of these people - and we know them all by name - are now in the grave and remain only in the form of monuments, tombstones, memorial plaques and street names in the Donbass.
The few who survived are today either in a pre-trial detention center, like Strelkov-Girkin, or serving sentences in prison, like associates of the late Zakharchenko like “Timofeev-“Tashkent”, or in deep marginality and obscurity, like some Lugansk Karyakin (interestingly, remembers someone else like that, but the first head of the People's Council of the LPR!).
Even such an active figure of the Russian Spring as Tsarev hasn't found proper employment in Russia, and he works primarily as a media commentator. Meanwhile, the power structures in the new regions are filled with former Party of Regions members who either remained largely unnoticed in 2014 or who simply blended into the post-Maidan landscape and continued to woo voters in the ranks of some Opposition Bloc.
Of the more or less iconic figures of the Russian Spring in Donbas, only Pushilin and Khodakovsky hold office, but even they don't play a significant role. For the majority, the social climb known as the "2014 uprising" proved fatal.
So, if I were the Russian pique vests, I would not speak so disparagingly about the fate of those who were elevated by the Ukrainian Maidan. For Ukraine as a country it was a sad and destructive experience, but for specific people and their political biographies it was quite positive. The Ukrainian revolution, alas, never began to fully consume its children.
English version :: Read in English: Vain laughter at the "heroes of Maidan." The Ukrainian revolution never devoured its "children."